Abstract

Students of Eastern Europe have always been students of linkage politics. How could they be otherwise? If one accepts James Rosenau’s original definition of linkage as “any recurrent sequence of behavior that originates in one system and is reacted to in another,” we have a concise description of the Soviet—East European interstate system of relations.1 Studies of these states have, for the most part, not elaborated theoretical formulations of this relationship, especially as it relates to foreign policies; but they have been highly sensitive nevertheless to the permeability of East European borders.2 This has typically taken the form of assessments of the impact of one or another externally-based phenomenon on the East European states. The “other system” in which these phenomena originate has usually been the Soviet Union.3 More recently, studies of the region have begun to assess the impact of various international milieux and changes therein on the East European states.4

James N. Rosenau, “Adaptive Strategies for Research and Practice in Foreign Policy,” in Fred W. Riggs (ed.), International Studies: Present Status and Future Prospects (Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 1971) esp. pp. 231–2;Google Scholar

Ronald H. Linden, Bear and Foxes: The International Relations of the East European States, 1965–1969 ( Boulder: East European Quarterly and Columbia University Press, 1979 ); William C Potter, “External Demands and East Europe’s Westpolitik,” in Linden, The Foreign Policies, pp. 96-134. See also the discussion in Linden, “Foreign Policy Studies.”Google Scholar

See Ceauşescu’s Report to the Eleventh Congress of the RCP in Congresul al XI-lea al Partidului Comunist Român (Bucharest: Editura Politică, 1975) pp. 41-2. Cf. Romulus Caplescu, “An Important Contribution to the Assertion of the New Principles of Relations in the International Communist Movement, to Strengthening Solidarity in the Struggle for Security, Peace, and Social Progress,” Lumea, no. 20, 14–20 July 1978, pp. 25–6;Google Scholar

For Ceauşescu’s designation of Romania as a developing country, see his speech to a 1972 National Conference of the RCP in Romania, vol. 7, pp. 519–20. For a discussion of Romania’s policies in this regard, see Ion Barac, “Romania and the Developing Countries,” Revue roumaine d’études internationales, XI, 1 (35), 1977, pp. 55–72.Google Scholar

See John M. Montias, “Romania’s Foreign Trade: An Overview,” in Joint Economic Committee, US Congress, East European Economies Post-Helsinki: A Compendium of Papers ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1977 ) pp. 865–85;Google Scholar

30.

Cal Clark and Robert Farlow, Comparative Patterns of Foreign Policy and Trade: The Communist Balkans in International Politics (Bloomington, Indiana: International Development Research Center, Indiana University, 1976), and Linden, Bear and Foxes, esp. Chapter 5, for discussions of this process.Google Scholar

32.

By the end of 1979 Romania had been extended $905 million in officially-backed credits from Western sources. See National Foreign Assessment Center, Soviet and East European Hard Currency Debt ( Washington: Central Intelligence Agency, 1980 ). See also Thad P. Alton, “Comparative Structure and Growth of Economic Activity in Eastern Europe,” in East European Economies, pp. 199–266.Google Scholar

Trond Gilberg, “Romania: Problems of the Multilaterally Developed Society,” in Charles Gati (ed.), The Politics of Modernization in Eastern Europe ( New York: Praeger, 1974 ) p. 148. One extraordinary event which may reflect the existence of an opposition of uncertain size was the speech at the Twelfth Congress of Constantin Privulescu, a veteran party stalwart of 84, who rose to accuse Ceausescu of placing his own interests above those of the country, and who declared — while others were exulting in the General Secretary’s leadership — that he would not vote for his reelection. See RFER, 28 November 1979. For Bucharest—s scant reportage, see Agerpress, 23 November 1979. See also RFER on the disappearance of Stefan Voitec, a member of the RCP Political Executive Committee, 20 January 1981.Google Scholar

56.

See the discussion in Jowitt, “Political Innovation in Romania,” and Mary Ellen Fischer, “Participatory Reforms and Political Development in Romania,” in Jan F. Triska and Paul M. Cocks (eds), Political Development in Eastern Europe ( New York: Praeger, 1977 ) pp. 217–37.Google Scholar

59.

See Daniel Nelson, “Sub-National Political Elites in a Communist System: Contrasts and Conflicts in Romania,” East European Quarterly, X, 4 (Winter 1976) pp. 459–94.Google Scholar

See the letter to the Central Committee by Karoly Kiraly, former alternate member of the RCP Presidium and member of the Central Committee, in The New York Times, 1 February 1978, p. 23; cf. Manuel Lucbert, “La minorité hongroise de Transylvanie est mécontente de son sort,” Le Monde, 5 May 1978, p. 4.Google Scholar

67.

At the Twelfth Congress Mihai Gere, candidate member of the Political Executive Committee, harshly rejected “false aggressive and ill-intentioned voices which resort to fabrications in order to distort our realities and try to set the Romanian, Hungarian, German, and other working people at loggerheads.” See Scînteia, 22 November 1979, p. 5. For a review of government policies toward the Hungarians, see Mary Ellen Fischer, “Nation and Nationality in Romania,” in George W. Simmonds (ed.), Nationalism in the USSR and Eastern Europe in the Era of Brezhnev and Kosygin (University of Detroit Press, 1977 ) pp. 504–21.Google Scholar

See Eugeniu Obrea, “Vigorous Assertion of National Independence Policies in the Service of Socialism and Peace,” Lumea 28 (15–21 September 1978) pp. 2–4.Google Scholar

75.

Bucharest recently refloated the idea of creating a “zone of peace” in this region. See Agerpress, 13 March 1979. See also I. Madosa, “The Balkans — a Laboratory of European Security,” Lumea 48 (28 November–4 December 1980) pp. 22–3.Google Scholar

See the discussion in Peter Bender, East Europe in Search of Security ( Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972 ) p. 112.Google Scholar

81.

For a discussion of the significance of the Ukraine in Soviet views of Czechoslovakia in 1968, see Grey Hodnett and Peter J. Potichnyj, The Ukraine and the Czechoslovak Crisis ( Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1970 ).Google Scholar